Docker Delivers Brand New Enterprise Edition

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Docker on Wednesday released the latest version of its enterprise container service, one that adds sophisticated policy control and automation features while introducing support for IBM z Systems mainframes.

The new release, now generally available, aims to make it easier for IT teams to modernize workloads at scale with container-based architectures, David Messina, Docker's senior vice president of marketing, told CRN.

"Ultimately, we're really driven by large enterprise customers who are really looking at Docker as a broad-based solution to cover their whole apps portfolio," Messina said.

The platform's value to partners, large and regional VARs and systems integrators, is "they can sell a whole bunch of services around our solution," Messina said. "It creates great opportunities for partners to sell integrated consulting services."

Introduced last March, Enterprise Edition is a subscription service brought to market by accredited Docker partners.

The platform, available in a few plans that offer different feature sets, delivers the San Francisco-based container-tech pioneer's open source tools—orchestration, machine management, security—with a quarterly release cadence and technology partnerships.

"We help IT buyers be able to centralize everything," Fong said. "All the containers can communicate with each other over the common overlay network."

Even individual applications can be heterogeneous, built from distributed containers spanning those environments.

The latest release also allows users to import from legacy environments a broader set of administrative policies, Fong said. A new capability even introduces role-based controls over access to specific computing nodes.